We all worry about spoiler alerts while surfing the web or mobile devices before we’ve watched our favorite television shows, right? But lately, there’s been a lot of online chatter about a positive connection between our favorite TV shows and the online/social media world. Being avid TV watchers, ourselves, and with BuzzPlant actively participating in several movie/TV projects, we’ve had no choice but to keep our eye on the latest trends.

You can currently “check-in” to FourSquare and Facebook when visiting your favorite coffee shop, movie theater or church service. So, it makes sense to “check-in” while watching television shows and movies, reading books and listening to music too. It’s all about letting the world know how you are spending your time. Now with the use of GetGlue, a social network for entertainment, you can earn stickers, rather than FourSquare badges, by letting your friends and followers know what you like. Haven’t heard of it? Well, GetGlue has 2M users that checked-in over 100M times in 2011 and 75 major networks and 10 movie studios use GetGlue to promote their shows and movies to fans. I would say it’s a trend on the rise. CEO and founder Alex Iskold knew CES was the perfect venue this week for receiving Mashable’s Breakout Startup of the Year Award and announcing $12 million in financing.

With more than 150 million people using the free app, Shazam is also one of the leaders in connecting TV audiences with a “second screen.” Most users associate the app with “tagging” a song they want to identify on a TV show, radio or live event, but now they are taking it a few steps further. You can now “tag” a song during a participating television show and it will bring up exclusive content on your mobile device. Ranging from videos, photos/wallpapers to the direct iTunes link to buy the “tagged” song, the reception and feedback gathered from the Facebook Likes and Twitter posts has motivated the company to make an aggressive push to TV with a new $32 million investment.

Last night, VH1 jumped on the “second screen” bandwagon with the 17th Annual Critics’ Choice Movie Awards. The feature aired live on their website and included up to four webcam feeds playing simultaneously powered by technology from Spreecast, a social video platform. By using social profiles, users asked questions and posted comments to the experts. The network recently launched a smartphone app, meant as a companion to it’s programming, called Co-Star,  available in iTunes. If all goes well, they will be utilizing this technology for more and more television events.

It will be interesting to see how this “second screen” technology continues to develop, and here at BuzzPlant, we are starting to integrate these outlets into our social media strategies and marketing plans. Are you more likely to watch a show if there is a “second screen” offering?